"And I thought I was taking a Nazi away from under your nose, Freddy!" he shouted aloud. "Heck! I should have realized that you couldn't be bothered with small fry. What a man, what a man!"
Nodding his head in vigorous emphasis, Dave cut out of his zoom, curved around on wingtip to throw off the aim of another Focke-Wulf trying to cut in at him, and snapped a glance down at the water. What he saw brought a yell of wild joy to his lips. Flame and smoke were belching up out of the raider's vitals amidships. And a bit astern of her two U-boats were lunging helplessly in a whirlpool of frothy water. But his joy was short lived. Though the raider had been hit, and was obviously afire, her engines were still doing their work. She was still cutting through the foam flecked rollers at top speed. Even as Dave realized the truth the belching smoke and flame diminished considerably. The raider's crew had got the bomb fire under control, and the raider was still hurling tons of anti-aircraft steel skyward.
At that moment Dave felt rather than saw movement at his side. He snapped his head around a bit to see Freddy Farmer scramble over and into the co-pilot's seat. The English youth's face was paper white but there was a wild determined look in his eyes.
"Rear gun ammo all gone!" he shouted before Dave could ask the question. "There wasn't half enough aboard! What did they think we might have to fight? A few training planes? It's up to you, Dave! You hit her once. Now hit her again and finish the blighter, and be-darned to these Jerry buzzards whizzing around us. Go on, Dave! Go on down and get her good this time. It's our last chance. You'll never have time to make a third bomb dive on her!"
"Last chance!" Dave echoed and shoved the Catalina's nose almost down to the vertical. "Last chance! And we'll make it final for that baby, too!"
[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN]
Wings of Victory
As though the very air were greased the Catalina flying boat went streaking down at the raider. Dave felt her tremble and vibrate from hull nose to tail, and from wingtip to wingtip. He felt parts of the plane let go. A brace girder or perhaps a strip of her fuselage covering, but he didn't give it a second thought. This was the last dive on the raider. This time he would release every bomb in the special hull racks. This time it was the raider, or the Catalina, and maybe both.
"Nice day, isn't it?" he suddenly shouted inanely at Freddy. "Is that shooting I hear?"
"A beautiful day!" Freddy shouted back automatically. "Oh, my, no! That's not shooting. Just some old geezer in the next room rattling his evening paper. And I say, Dave, could we stop for a bite to eat? I'm famished!"